The History of Swimming: A Memoir [Hardcover]

Kim Powers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 24, 2006

They entered the world just five minutes apart, twins swimming out of the womb together, already arguing about who got to lead the way. They grew up together, best friends with rhyming names. They even went to the same college — where one of them had a nervous breakdown, and the other didn’t. Grown-up, one of them became a suicidal drunk, the other a success. Now, one is missing, and the other has just three days to find him.

It really happened.

The History of Swimming details Kim Powers’ frantic search for his twin brother Tim who disappears from Manhattan one weekend while in his late 20s. Kim almost mystically imagines that the clues to Tim’s whereabouts have been planted in a series of letters written by Tim over the years. Now, Kim uses the letters as a sort of roadmap that takes him to Texas, the setting of their greatest triumphs and tragedies.

At the small Texas college where many of these events occurred, Kim falls in with two eccentric traveling companions who guide him on the last leg of his quest, driving through the night to the one final place where Tim might be.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Powers's memoir of his turbulent relationship with his twin brother, Tim, has the feel of a mystery (the memoir centers on a search for the missing Tim over a three-day period). Throughout the narrative, Powers (a screenwriter who has also written for Good Morning America) explores his family history, his mother's suicide, his father's alcoholism and the challenge of coming-of-age as a gay man (the twins and their older brother are all gay). Tim's troubles were often made worse by his struggle with alcoholism and drug abuse, compounded by a family history of mental illness. The twins were living in New York City in their mid-20s when Powers got a phone call one morning that Tim had not shown up for work. Being the responsible older brother (if only by five minutes), he begins his search, which leads him to Tim's alma mater in Texas, where he befriends an undergrad friend of Tim's who accompanies Powers on his search. Using old letters that Tim had written to Powers, they try to pinpoint where Tim might be, never knowing whether they will find him dead or alive. Although uneven writing distracts from the story, Powers's strength in relating his own personal struggles within the context of his twin's holds this unique memoir together. (Sept.)
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From Booklist

In this haunting memoir, Emmy-winning journalist Powers recounts the search for his gay fraternal twin, Tim, after the 28-year-old sibling mysteriously disappears. The author, who is also gay, and his brother both endured a traumatic upbringing--an alcoholic father and a mentally unbalanced mother who died when they were eight. Tim had the tougher time of the two, suffering a nervous breakdown during his senior year at Austin College in Sherman, Texas. (Both were theater majors there.) Powers is convinced the clues to his brother's collapse lie in a series of cryptic, often eloquent, letters penned over the years. He leaves his Manhattan apartment and returns to the Austin College campus, a place laden with memories both bitter and sweet. Powers' unlikely encounter with a stranger leads to the site of a theater camp in the Texas Hill Country, where a sexually conflicted Tim was once torn between two loves. Powers writes with insight and intelligence about his brother's flaws and fears and the telepathic tendencies of souls separated by a few breaths. Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 325 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf; First edition. edition (July 24, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786717238
• ISBN-13: 978-0786717231
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,495,922 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Powerfully emotional roller coaster of brotherly love and responsibility, September 8, 2006

By 

Bob Lind "camelwest" (Phoenix, AZ United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: The History of Swimming: A Memoir (Hardcover)

As the story begins, Kim Powers receives a call from the boss of his twin brother Tim, reporting that he has not reported to work and appears to be missing. After dealing with such instances most of his life, Kim at 28 is tiring of his role as big brother (he is five minutes older) and caretaker to his identical twin, who suffers from bouts of chronic depression and tends to substance abuse and suicide attempts.

Kim and Tim were essentially raised by their older brother, "Porky", no thanks to their alcoholic, abusive father and a mother whose mental illness eventually led to suicide when the twins were seven. All three boys grew up to be gay, although their sexual orientation is not an intergral part of the story. Following college, which was perhaps the most stable time of the twins' lives, Kim and Tim moved from their native Texas to Manhattan, not living together but continuing to be an intergral part of each others' lives. Kim was attuned to his brother's fragile emotions and tried to be there for him as much as possible, eventually resenting the intrusion on his own life and the impact on his own mental health.

Knowing that Tim had seemed to be getting worse and worse before his disappearance, Kim imagines the worst and frantically sets out to look for him. He reads Tim's doodles on his appointment calendar, as well as past letters Tim wrote to Kim and himself, trying to determine where he might have gone to (as he said on his dayplanner) "go swimming," a euphemism he often used for getting his life back on track. Kim concludes that he must have gone back to their almamater, Austin College, which was a time of relative stability in their lives, despite Tim's nervous breakdown. On arrival at the college, he meets a young undergrad who reminds him of he and his brother at that age, and together they search the campus and a rural art colony that also had memories for them. Along the way, Kim rereads more of Tim's letters, triggering so much guilt and depression of his own that the young accomplice becomes his caretaker of sorts.

This is an extremely emotional, complex story, and the reader can't hope to experience it in the same way as the author. Perhaps that is the one fault of the book, in that the interaction between the brothers (primarily through the letters between them, which make up a large and tedious part of the book, serving as the way in which the author flashes back to fill in details about themselves) is too unique and dysfunctional to be interpreted easily by the average reader. Nevertheless, the book is a powerful, intelligently-conceived and written memoir about brotherly love, guilt, responsibility, finding laughter in a lifetime of pain, hope and love. Four stars out of five.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It's not easy being a twin..., September 10, 2006

By 

A mom (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The History of Swimming: A Memoir (Hardcover)

Sibling relationships can be very difficult - especially close ones. Not being a twin, I can't relate to the whole "twin" thing, but I can relate to loving, hating and competing with my sister - all at the same time. What I love about this book is that it is so clear about portraying humanity - gifts and flaws at the same time. While Tim is a gifted writer and I loved reading his letters, it's easy to see how he would have driven Kim insane. I disagree with the previous reviewer re: the letters - I thought they were one of the best parts of the book. I agree that there are a couple of slow spots, but I really really liked the book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love Is All We Know Of Love, December 16, 2006

By 

H. F. Corbin "Foster Corbin" (ATLANTA, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The History of Swimming: A Memoir (Hardcover)

Named Kim and Tim by their twelve-year-old brother Porky (wise parents vetoed Porky's first choice of Joe Bob for Tim) the Powers twins were separated in birth by only five minutes. They grew up together, attended the same college, and in many ways were inseparable, even once giving each other the same book, THE HABIT OF BEING, Flannery O'Connor's letters, for birthday gifts. ("Twins always know.") They also, as well as their older brother Porky, eventually figure out that they are gay. ("What was it in the water we drank as children?") Tim, however, becomes a suicidal alcoholic; Kim goes to graduate school in the East and becomes successful-- at least professionally. Much of this unflinchingly honest memoir is about Kim's attempts to find his suicidal brother when Kim learns that Tim has not shown up for work and has disappeared. Powers intersperses throughout the book his brother Tim's letters ("my older brother [Porky] taught me to swim when I was five years old"), letting his brother's own voice speak of his nervous breakdown, his sorrows, his craziness, but also his joy: ("Keep remembering. Keep coming out. Write. Live. Love. It's yours to do.")

Although Mr. Powers can be at times a bit tedious and self-indulgent, his prose is as transparent as the water about which he writes so eloquently. I almost didn't finish this book. That would have been my great loss for the last 30 or so pages of this memoir will break your heart; they contain so much sadness but so much more love.

I confess I cannot be objective about this book. I too am a twin (being forever the older by 15 minutes) and see so much of my brother and me in these two men: never being photographed alone as children, being forever "the twins," should we live to be a hundred (At least we were not saddled with rhyming first names), and knowing that we are in many ways so close and love each other so much, yet so different as my twin is straight.

The New York Times listed THE HISTORY OF SWIMMING as one of the notable nonfiction books of 2006, an honor it richly deserves.